A Test of Troubles
by dressagegrrrl
Summary: A man should never willingly let go of what is his.  Written for the 2011 round of the SSHG Exchange.  Sex, language, angst.  AU EWE SSHG.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hi, guys. I wrote this for the fabulous curia_regis for the 2011 SSHG exchange. I tell you that to reassure you all that, yes, this one is finished. I'll publish a chapter a week (maaaaaybe sooner depending on my work schedule), and it will be complete in four installments. In this story, there is: Sex. Language. Angst. Rape is mentioned in the first chapter. It's not a graphic description, but I don't sidle up to it obliquely, either. Please read with caution (if at all) if it is a difficult or triggering subject for you. **

**Also, I know I haven't updated Potion Master's Storeroom or Memory, Snape, and Bird in aaages, but neither one is abandoned. PMS (heh) in particular is something that I've been tweaking a lot. Sorry you faithful readers have been kept waiting. I will be updating some point soonish.**

**That said, I hope you enjoy this one. It's not terribly long, but it's heartfelt. (HEART.)**

**Edited to add: DERP. I can't believe I forgot to thank Aurette. AURETTE. Thanks as always for the alpha read. Wubs.  
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><p><em>They say that 'time assuages,'-<em>

_Time never did assuage;_

_An actual suffering strengthens,_

_As sinews do, with age._

_Time is a test of trouble,_

_But not a remedy._

_If such it prove, it prove to_

_There was no malady._

_-Emily Dickinson_

**Chapter One**

Whitville burrows like a tick in the skin of the Poconos. The mountains are lovely, but poverty fades the town into shades of grey: cement, ash, exhaust, smoke. Unemployment is high. So are illiteracy rates. It's nothing but pubs, rain-rotted clapboard houses winking with broken windows, and a one-room library, the town's first and only, established in 2005.

Snape walks over pavement pitched willy-nilly by tree roots. He tucks his hands into the pockets of his trousers and then pulls them out. It's too hot and humid. When he breathes, the air doesn't satisfy. When he exhales, he feels faint.

It's sufficient, though. Snape is used to discomfort. His life has become an eternal quest to move from pain to less pain, from fear to less fear, from anger to apathy. Yes, he's deuced uncomfortable, but that is only because he hasn't yet moved to _less_ uncomfortable. That search means he's not dead yet. He finds that satisfactory for now.

He turns onto a seedy side street and stops in front of a white house just like every other on the road.

Jenny Farmer lives on the second floor of the home of Mrs. Ethel Llewellyn. From what Snape can see, the old bird is a cranky bit of baggage, but Jenny has a rusted exterior staircase that allows her to bypass her landlady and enter directly into her flat. That's how he approaches, noting with displeasure that she has no wards on her property, nothing to protect her from either Muggles or the odd passing Wizard.

He casts a nonverbal _Alohamora_ on the door and steps inside her flat.

When she arrives home at 2:30 PM, he's sitting on her couch, elbows resting on his knees, wand unsheathed, but held casually.

She stops dead in the doorway and drops the brown bag of groceries she'd held in her left arm. Her right hand still clasps her key as she has been arrested in the motion of pushing her door open. They stare at each other in a frozen tableau as the bottom of the paper bag turns wet.

She seems taller than he remembers, maybe five foot seven, and she has no tits to speak of. Her rag-and-bone frame swims in a Sparky's waitress uniform, an arse-high blue dress complete with a frilly apron. Fishnets criss-cross her legs. It reminds him of an adolescent wank fantasy. Her hair is long and dyed red, and her brown eyes are hard.

"What the fuck," she says finally in a flat American accent, all nasal vowels and mushy consonants. "What the fuck are you doing in my apartment?"

Snape taps his lips as if pondering the question. "After eleven years, is that really the first question you want to ask me?" He watches her, but the blank expression she wears makes it unsatisfying.

Jenny stares at him, panting, nostrils flaring at every breath.

"I'd have thought the first question out of your mouth would have been an inquiry after Mr. Potter or Weasley." He whispers, but the air in the room seems to shudder. "Or even a 'How did you find me?' Because really, it's quite obvious _what_ I'm doing in your apartment."

She backs toward the door.

"Potter and Weasley are both fine, by the way, although still stupid. And neither one has ever given up hope of finding you." He looks over her shoulder. "I gave up, of course. You didn't leave me much choice, did you?" Snape tries to smile, but it is a tremulous attempt, and he gives it up when she just looks horrified. He leans back against her couch and gestures with his wand. The door shuts behind her, and she startles. "I've just Portkeyed across the ocean to speak with you. I'm rather insulted by your silence."

An immeasurable pause, and then she sighs and slumps against the frame, smiling bitterly. Her arms cross in front of her chest. "Wouldn't want to insult you, would we?" She pushes herself upright with her hips and then bends to pick up her bag of groceries. "Fuck. There go the eggs. Thanks for that, Snape." She cradles the paper sack from the bottom and carries it into the kitchenette. The yellow and orange linoleum is peeling in long, sun-burned strips, and Jenny deftly avoids tripping on a loose piece. She plunks the bag on the counter and turns to face him.

"Why are you here?"

"Because you are alive. Because you are alive, and you are here. And because it's time for you to come home." _With me_, he thinks. "Although I certainly can understand your reluctance to leave _all of this_." He gestures around the dingy flat with a curled lip.

She turns and begins putting her groceries away. "It's not anyone's choice but my own."

He gets up and walks over to her front door. There is a yellow snotty spot on the floor where she dropped her eggs. "So, you faked your own death, did you? Seems a coward's way to me." He _Evanescoes_ the mess.

"I didn't fake anything. I just left."

"Directly after a cataclysmic battle in which half of the combatants perished." He walks to the kitchen and leans against the worktop. "You let everyone who loved you think you were dead. You let _me_ think you were dead. I'd say you are splitting hairs."

She shows no reaction, just mops up the sticky sludge the bag left on the counter.

"Granger-"

"Farmer. Jenny Farmer," she corrects immediately. Her eyes remain on her hands. Her voice does not shake.

"_Granger_," he says again, frustrated, squeezing the worktop hard enough that his knuckles bloom white. He's imagined this conversation a thousand times since discovering she was alive. He pictured her spitting angry; soft and sad and still in love with him; he'd pictured her married, a frumpy housewife with five children. However, he'd never once imagined that she'd act indifferent. He narrows his eyes. "I'd never have guessed you'd become so cruel. You, the girl who championed house-elves and Potions masters alike."

"I won't respond to that name."

"Granger," he repeats.

"No."

"Your name is Hermione Granger, and you are a coward. Say it."

Her mouth thins, and she whirls to face him. She pokes him hard in the chest, and it hurts wonderfully. He leans into the pressure. _There she is_. "Fuck _off_," she hisses. "_Fuck off_, Snape. You don't know a goddamned thing about me, so shut your fucking mouth." Her eyes burn colder than he's ever seen.

"You know what your problem is, _Granger_?" _Yes, more, _he thinks as he sees her bristle. "What it's been since I first met you as a frizzy-haired eleven year old? You've always thought you were smarter than everyone else. Did you imagine that I would see the name Perdita Farmer on the incoming Hogwarts student register and somehow _miss_ the obvious connection?"

Her face is pale, but she has two manic spots of color high in her cheekbones. She clutches at the edge of the worktop as if she needs physical support.

Snape isn't going to tell her that he almost did, of course. Hermione had been presumed dead for so long, his eyes had skimmed over the damning "Perdita" the first few times he'd read the register. Some tickle of subconscious sent him back again to scan the lists, and when he lit upon the name it burst upon him with all the force of a Bludger to the gut. Hermione. Perdita.

"Clumsy, which is unlike you," he says. "Did you think I was illiterate? That I hadn't read Shakespeare simply because he was a Muggle? I'm shocked that after _everything_, you still thought so little of me."

"Not that it's _any_ of your fucking business, but I thought if she were a Witch, she'd appear on the roster of the Spindleford Academy for Witches and Wizards in Philadelphia . If she were a squib, she'd attend the local school here in Whitville." Her eyes burn, and Snape wants to bask in the warmth of the fire he's set in her. "She is my only link to who I was. Perdita, the daughter of Hermione, raised in ignorance of her own lineage on a far and distant shore."

"And Hermione, who died only to be restored to life by the end of the play?* Was that a bit of a joke on the rest of us? The ones who mourned you?"

She shakes her head but doesn't respond, and she won't look at him.

"And where is the little ankle-biter? I have to admit I'm interested to see what sort of horror occurred when your genes mixed with—I'm assuming she's Weasley's, yes? If she were mine, you wouldn't have felt the need to run." He looks around the dingy flat as if expecting to see a pre-teen witchling with furious red curls poke her head around the corner.

"Here." Granger pulls her wallet from her back pocket and throws it at his chest. He catches it deftly and flips it open. It's completely empty except for four or five photos of a pretty child tucked inside a cheap plastic picture insert.

Snape brings it closer to his face and feels his blood drain into his toes. Perdita is blonde with grey-blue eyes, patrician nose, and pert, pointed chin. His gaze cuts to Granger.

She smiles, but it looks like a sneer. "Cute, huh? She's the _spitting_ image of her daddy."

"Lucius?" he whispers. "Draco?"

"Please. Draco was stupid, but incapable of real viciousness."

Snape remains silent. Before he'd been Kissed, his godson had been capable of many things.

"No, it was Lucius, the night we were trapped in Malfoy Manor. I'd just been Crucio'd by Bellatrix, and I was shaking so badly, I couldn't have fought him off if I'd tried. Took me right there on the rug I'd sicked up on, surrounded by half of Voldemort's goddamn Inner Circle." She laughs suddenly. "I'm surprised it didn't get back to you… what happened." Her eyebrows furrow, before she adds, "Well, I suppose by that point in the war, things were moving awfully quickly, and once it was over, there weren't many people left alive who knew anyway."

She turns her back on him and crumples up the grocery bag, throwing it in the rubbish.

His brain is buzzing, and he hurts as if he's just taken a gut punch. "I'm so sorry, Hermione." He chokes on the words.

"Jenny, Snape. Get it right. I've been Jenny for a decade. I'm not Hermione any longer."

"I'm sorry." He doesn't want to call her Jenny, but he acknowledges that she bears no resemblance to the girl he knew. She'd been reborn from an act of violence, and she had the right to call herself whatever she goddamn pleased. "Jenny." He stumbles over it.

"Yeah, well, it happened a long time ago, and your apology doesn't do much for me now, does it?"

"Nonetheless, I am. I… I can't believe that I didn't know. Maybe I could have…"

"No," she says sharply. "You couldn't have done anything. You had a different role to play. If you'd been there, you would have sat there and watched, because you were a fucking spy. And how I would have hated you for watching that, even knowing that it was the right thing to do. At least I was spared that."

She rubs her eyes, and when she drops her hands, he sees how exhausted she looks, how dark the circles under her eyes are. He hangs his head.

"You can't change the past, and I'm not the woman you knew," she says, propping her hand on her waist. "Now get the hell out of my apartment. Perdita will be home soon, and I don't want her to see or hear any of this."

He leaves because she demands it, not because he wants to leave.

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><p><strong>AN: *The play he is referring to is "A Winter's Tale." I'm sure all of you clever kiddies got that already, though.**

**Like it, love it, hate it, review it.  
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	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N: Look at me posting way earlier than I said I would! Thanks to Aurette for the alpha work. :)**_

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><p><em>They say that 'time assuages,'-<em>

_Time never did assuage;_

_An actual suffering strengthens,_

_As sinews do, with _

_Time is a test of trouble,_

_But not a remedy._

_If such it prove, it prove to_

_There was no _

_-Emily Dickinson_

**Chapter Two**

He manages to stay away for a month before Portkeying back to Whitville. It's expensive, but the image of Herm…Jenny's exhausted features haunts him. He worries at it like a sore tooth, wondering if she is sleeping well and eating properly. He wonders too about Perdita. Jenny had raised her in ignorance of her ignoble beginnings. Could a child created from such an act of hate, the child of a psychopath and his victim, be a normal, happy girl?

Snape goes to Sparky's, understanding instinctively that if he showed up at her house again, she would see it as an aggressive action. The diner is grimy. Even after being wiped down, the table maintains a thin, sticky film of grease that causes Snape's lip to curl in distaste. He carefully rubs the tips of his fingers on the black wool of his jacket and places his hands in his lap. He does not touch his menu. There is old blackberry jam on the spine, and it reminds Snape of dried, clotted blood.

"I knew you'd be back. Of i_course_/i you'd be unable to mind your own business, right?"

He looks up to see her standing at the head of the table, hair pulled back into a severe bun. One tendril has escaped and corkscrews down her temple.

"No. It's not every day that one discovers that a loved one has been raised from the dead. Forgive me my curiosity."

"I don't have room for you in my life, Snape." She presses her lips together, and the pen she holds in her hand trembles delicately, a fine blur like hummingbird wings. She is very careful to avoid looking directly in his eyes.

Silence stretches between them, before she finally asks, "Well? Are you going to order something? I have other tables." She sounds dead tired.

After a long pause, he finally says, "Two eggs, coddled. Wheat toast, dry. Coffee, black."

She takes the menu from the table and walks away without another word. He watches her go and thinks of ways to be close to her.

When it comes, the food tastes like ash, and Jenny remains elusive. She places his dishes on the table, rolls her eyes, and leaves.

Snape sees her tend other tables with considerably more warmth than she'd lavished on him. His gut churns as he watches for signs that she's thinking of running from him.

She relaxes when he pulls a book from the leather satchel at his side, and even more once he finishes choking down the execrable excuse for breakfast and motions for his check.

When she drops it off, he says, "Are you free later?"

Jenny's laugh is brittle. "You're _loony_."

He considers this. "I don't think so. I wanted to talk to you about Perdita and her education. I also brought something you might find… palliative."

"I don't need anything from you, and Perdita's none of your business. She's mine." Her eyes narrow, but her voice is quiet and even.

Snape holds his hands up, palms out. "I'm aware." He turns and looks at the table's ugly floral centerpiece—carnations dyed a regrettable blue. His dark eyes can make people feel uncomfortable, pinned. "I know you don't want her to go to Hogwarts. She'd have," he shifts in the squeaky vinyl booth, "an uncomfortable time of it there, with her Malfoy heritage clear as day. Nonetheless, she's on the books. I've brought transfer paperwork so she can attend Spindleford Academy if that is what you desire." He shifts to watch her from the corner of his eye.

Her mouth opens and closes; she appears to be at a loss for words. "You are right. She'd never survive the teasing." She gives a shuddering sigh. "I remember how nasty it could get, and it'd be even worse for her."

Snape nods. "And if you do not fill out the transfer paperwork now, I'm afraid you'll be getting a visit from Minerva McGonagall. She is still in charge of all of our Muggle home visits."

Jenny chews her lip, and then says, "Fine. I'm done after the breakfast rush at eleven."

He smiles because he can't help it. He smiles because she could have demanded he leave the paperwork and go. He smiles because maybe she's not as averse to seeing him as she pretends. Not really.

"Shall I pick you up here, then?" Snape says.

"No, I'll meet you in the park across the way. It's just there," and she leans over, placing her hand on the table and pointing out the window with the other. Her dress gapes open, and he can see past her small breasts clad in white cotton down to her navel. He immediately looks away, but it's too late. He's inflamed by her smell and her skin and the memory of her beneath him, moving, arching, panting.

He clears his throat and crosses his legs. "Yes, I see."

She gives him a sharp glance, and then he has to catch his breath because she blushes, and he knows they are both remembering.

"S-so, I'll see you at 11:15," she says, although it's very nearly a question her voice is so tentative.

"Yes."

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><p>He has nothing else to do in a town as small and dismal as Whitville, and really, she's the only reason he's here. So after breakfast, he goes and sits in the park. He stretches his black-clad legs out and slumps on a bench, arms crossed over his chest.<p>

Even though he is in the shade, it's as hot as Hades, so he casts a Cooling Charm. Snape is still wearing black wool, after all. As if he'd wear anything else. He casts an extra Cooling Charm on his dragonhide boots, and then allows himself to relax into the background noise of chirring locusts and chirping birds.

He drowses long enough for the light to change, and when he wakes up, he feels the sun dappling his legs and arms. Hermione has woken him, calling his name, drawing him up through layers of cottony sleep, but when he finally opens his eyes, it is not Hermione he sees, but Jenny, with her hard mouth and red hair.

But Snape notices something that wasn't present before. Her eyes are soft and brown like Hermione's were. She is Jenny, but he recognizes the girl she used to be is still present, still lurking under armor that peels off like sunburned skin.

"Napping? Out in the open?" she asks, humor in her voice. "That doesn't fit very well with the image I have of Severus Snape, spy extraordinaire."

"Of course," he says, his voice gruff with sleep. "I retired years ago. I'm old now, you see." He points to his black hair which sports very little gray. He doesn't mention how he could have disarmed or killed her with a few, well-placed maneuvers. That's not the sort of thing one says.

"I feel old myself," she sighs, running her fingers through her hair. She's loosed it, and it spills down her back. "Shall we get this done then?"

Jenny had changed her clothes to a soft ribbed vest and denims with a wide brown belt. If possible, she looks even more undernourished than when she was prancing around in her Sparky's uniform.

"Can I treat you to lunch?" he asks. When he sees her hesitate, he adds, "It'd be easier to have a table on which to spread the paperwork." He doesn't mention his concern over her weight. His expression remains carefully neutral.

At last, she nods, and they walk next to each other.

With an apologetic look at Snape, she chooses a chain restaurant with a moose mascot. The interior is a bilious-looking green, and the air smells of stale grease. "There's really nothing else in town. We'd have to drive to Wilkes-Barre for anything better."

"I ate at Sparky's today. I'm not that picky."

"Are you insulting my place of business?" Jenny smirks. "Maybe I did something to your eggs."

"You think I didn't check first? I'm an old spy, not a dead one."

They are shown to a table, and Snape raises an eyebrow at the paper placemats with a connect-the-dots game on them. "Very fancy."

"I'll have you know that once the puzzle is completed, it depicts a very nice pickup truck." When he snorts, she adds, "I'm not actually joking. This is one of Perdita's favorite restaurants. She's done that puzzle a million times. She doesn't even have to look at the numbers any more."

Snape leans forward and rests his elbows on the table. "Tell me about her. Tell me about what your life has been like since you… left."

Jenny looks at him, her head cocked. "Okay, but first, I have questions, things I have to know before I share anything about Perdy. You," she exhales, "You have to tell me what you're doing here."

"Specifically?"

"I want to know why you kept my secret. You must have, because if you'd told Harry or Ron that you'd found me, they'd have been sitting right next to you on my Salvation Army couch when I came home that day." She leans back and crosses her arms. "Why did you do that?"

Snape pauses and thinks. It's too important not to be precise with his response. "Many reasons. Primarily, I suppose that I… didn't want to make any choices for you. If I had told anyone I'd found you, you'd have been dragged back into the Wizarding World whether you wanted to be or not." He leans his head against the back of the booth and sighs. "In the past, I have often felt like a man whose choices have been taken from him. I didn't wish to visit that upon you."

She smiles; it's just a crinkling of her eyes, but it's warm. "Thanks for that."

He's not sure why he continues, but he does. He's always been a glutton for punishment. "And secondly, I had issues of my own to lie to rest where you are concerned."

She watches him with shuttered eyes and doesn't say a word.

"Nothing? You have nothing to say? Not even a crumb to spare for me?"

She sighs and shifts. Her back cracks. "Is there a point? We're not the same people any longer. Do you want to retread ancient history? Did you come here for a quick fumble for old time's sake? Is that what this is?"

"Ah," he says, mourning the loss of the young woman he'd loved. "Maybe it _was_ foolish." He turns back to the place mat, tracing it with a finger. "You know, I'd rather fancied we'd find each other after the war and fall into each others' lives as easily as we'd fallen into bed." He takes a sip of water. "Do you remember that first time? We were at Grimmauld Place. We'd never even looked at each other before, but then all of a sudden, you were trying to patch me up over the sink, your hands all over my chest, and it was the most natural thing in the world to take you to bed." Snape thinks for a moment, trying to put his finger on what he wants to say. "Right. It was right between us." He looks up into her face, but he doesn't see Jenny. He sees Hermione. "And then you died, and I…"

"So you were a romantic, then?"

He's surprised. "Knowing what you know of me, did you doubt it?"

"I was never sure of you. Not really." Her eyes flicker.

Snape leans forward. His elbows rest on the table, and his fingers twine together, pale and scarred. "Then that was my failing, not being more transparent," he says. "At the end, it was easy to forget that you were still so young." He feels his lips twist. "That was also my failing, although not a habitual one. I'd never before fallen in love with a student. Just you. Just Hermione."

Her face is suddenly soft, and she opens her mouth, and every sense he possesses strains, as if he were struggling to hear her from far away. He's waiting, dying, for her.

But then she sits back and clears her throat, and there's a waiter pouring water into their half-empty glasses which are spotty from the dishwasher. The moment becomes lost in mundanity, and his words sit on them like weights. They order lunch.

"So," he says as the waiter walks away. "Perdita. Tell me about her."

Everything about Jenny lights up, and he can see she's in love with her child. "Perdita, she's... well, she's fantastic. She's so smart and inquisitive. The other day we were taking a walk in the park, and I pointed to a bird in a tree. I said, 'Look at the swallow. I just love songbirds.' And she looked over at me kind of pityingly and said, 'Yes, of course. But it would be more accurate to call it a passerine or perching bird, rather than a songbird.'"

"Oh, so she's a little know-it-all like you were?"

"Definitely! But she's so much more than me, too. She's got such a... sense of dignity. At her age, I was always rushing around with pens stuck in my hair and behind my ears, inks smudged all over my face and hands. She's quiet and polite, and so very earnest about everything."

Snape's heart begins to ache from the weight of Jenny's love for her daughter. "She sounds wonderful. Rare." His jealousy burns him.

"She is. I never thought I could love anyone the way I love her."

That hurts in a way that is familiar. Hadn't he always been loved second best? Snape understands he wants unreasonable things. He wants her. He wants her to love him the way she did ten years ago. He wants his Hermione, not Jenny, and he wants her to belong to him. He knows he'll never get that now, and that's okay. At least, he tells himself it's okay.

Jenny bites her lip. "I was worried that I wouldn't love her, you know. After everything. When she was born, I looked into her face, and I was so afraid I would see Malfoy."

"I've never met anyone with as much capacity for love as you." He despairs, but he forces a small smile. "Even if you had seen Lucius staring back at you, I know you'd have found a way to love your little girl."

"Luckily, I wasn't put to the test. She looked like a half-squashed tomato, but she was mine. The moment they laid her in my arms, I knew it."

"When can I meet her?" It was hard to speak through the stranglehold on his throat.

Jenny takes a sip of her water. "Soon. Today. Tonight." She doesn't meet his eyes. "But only if you don't bring up the war. That's something I never want her to know about."

If Perdita is anything like Hermione was as a child, Snape doubts that she is ignorant of the war and her mother's part in it. He doesn't say that, though. Instead, he offers, "People who have been through the hell of war often do not wish to revisit it. It will be no trial for me to keep silent on the subject."

She nods, and then looks over his shoulder and smiles. The waiter approaches with their lunch. He sets a salad in front of Jenny and a plate of fish in front of Snape. And it's truly a plate full of fish. "Good lord. This plate has three full filets! Who could eat this much?"

"Welcome to Whitville, PA. Americans are obsessed with getting value for their money." she says and takes a bite of salad.

"Here, there's no way I'll be able to consume this much." He slides a serving on top of her salad. "Eat at least a bit, or I'll feel terrible for wasting food."

Greedily, he watches her take a bite. She chews, swallows, and then smiles. "You always used to do this, you know. When we were together before."

"What's that?"

"Shove food in my face. I used to think that you wanted to plump me up. That you didn't find me attractive because I was too slender."

That stings him. "I wanted to take care of you. You were mine, or I thought you were, and I wanted you to be healthy."

She ducks her head, but she doesn't respond. Instead, she takes another bite of fish which is as much apology as he's going to receive from her. Not that he supposes he needs or wants her to be sorry. He rolls his eyes and pulls a glass phial with a silver stopper out of his pocket and slides it over to her. In for a penny, in for a pound, as it were.

Jenny holds it up to the light. "Nutritional Potion? This is the something 'palliative' you had for me, I take it."

"You're clearly fatigued and undernourished. I prepared this for you, but I understand if you have reservations about taking something from my hand. It's been many years."

She meets his eyes and laughs. Flicking the cap off with her thumb, she holds it up to her nose and sniffs. "Looks like Nutritional Potion. _Smells_ like Nutritional Potion..."

"I'll have you know that I could have slipped any number of colorless and odorless poisons into that potion," he huffs. "I _am _an expert."

Jenny swigs it down, and Snape feels ridiculously gratified.

She sighs. "I am not a trusting woman, Severus. Not any longer. But I do trust that you would not hurt me intentionally."

"That's something then," he says and stretches out his fingers until they just brush hers on the table.

She allows it.

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><p><em><strong>AN: Like it, love it, hate it, review it.**_


	3. Chapter 3

_**A/N: Chapitre trois. In which this story earns its "M."** **Smut towards the v. end.**  
><em>

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><p><em>They say that 'time assuages,'-<em>

_Time never did assuage;_

_An actual suffering strengthens,_

_As sinews do, with _

_Time is a test of trouble,_

_But not a remedy._

_If such it prove, it prove to_

_There was no _

_-Emily Dickinson_

**Chapter Three**

He walks her back to her dismal apartment in the seedy side of town. They pass through the heart of Whitville, populated with strip malls, bars with buzzing fluorescent signs, and listing salt box houses with kennels full of barking dogs in the back. Compared to Hogsmeade with its shops and charming cottages, Whitville is depressing, and every step weighs Snape down.

"Why here?" he asks Jenny. "Of all places on earth, why here?"

"I was wondering when you'd ask that," she said, smiling. Her arm just brushes his as they walk down the pavement. "When I came here, there was no library. Who'd have thought to look for Hermione Granger in a place with no library?"

He laughs in spite of himself.

"And besides," she continues, "I know Whitville seems gray and sad, but there's beauty here, too. The Pocono Mountains are lovely in the fall, and they're riddled with hiking trails. Perdy and I love to pack a lunch and take the day to wander in the woods." Jenny tucks her hand into the crook of his arm. "And although like every town, it's a mix of good and bad, I have met some of the most lovely people here. Ethel Llewellyn, the woman who owns the house where I live, she took me in when I was pregnant and jobless. Wouldn't take a penny until I was working. She's a cranky and nosy woman with the loveliest, mushiest heart. You know, she lobbied tirelessly for the library. It's entirely thanks to her that Whitville finally joined the 21st century."

Snape snorts. "More like the 19th century." He's very aware of her warm palm on his bicep. He resists the urge to flex, but is unable to keep from covering the top of her hand with his free one. How long had he wanted this? To walk in public with a woman he loved, touching, talking.

"You'll have to take my word for it, Severus. It's not so bad here. I could have chosen a lot worse, I think."

He pats her hand. "You've done wonderfully."

They approach her apartment, and he's sad that he has to let her go so that they can ascend the steps in single file. When they reach the top, he pulls the paperwork out of his breast pocket and hands it to her. "I've already filled out most of it. You just need to sign it."

"Thank you." She looks down to put it in her purse and then tucks her long hair behind her ears. "Do you... where are you staying? When do you leave to go back?"

His heart leaps with hope. He slides his hands in his pocket to keep from grabbing her, and looks out over the misty gray town. "Just down the road at the Comfort Inn. My Portkey is scheduled for noon tomorrow."

She nods and then hesitates. Finally, she says, "What you said earlier... about loving me, I mean, I loved you, too." A tear spills down her face, and he has the most insane urge to touch the wet streak, drag it down her jaw to her neck and collarbone where he can kiss it away. He doesn't though. He just listens. "So much. Leaving you was... it nearly killed me. I couldn't, I couldn't be Hermione any longer, because she _was_ yours. I had to become Jenny, because Jenny was Perdita's."

He strokes his fingers into her hair. "You know, it makes no difference to me. Hermione or Jenny, I still love you, even now." He pulls a strand over her shoulder and buries his nose in it, breathing deeply. "When I thought you were dead, I couldn't bear it, and I feel like I only woke up from a decade long nightmare when I saw Perdita's name on the Hogwart's incoming student roster."

"Do you... do you want to stay here? Just for tonight, I mean," she adds quickly. "You could meet my daughter, have dinner with us..." She trails off.

"Are you inviting me out of obligation? Since I've come all this way?" He holds his breath.

"No."

It's enough. Snape nods and leans forward, giving her ample time to object, and brushes his mouth against hers. He uses immense care as he sips from her lips, and then he pulls back and examines her face. Her cheeks are flushed, and her hands curl beneath his lapels. Her fingers flex and knead his chest like a cat's. He groans and leans into her once more, pressing his lips to hers. Her back hits her front door, and her fingers stroke through his hair.

Her mouth opens and their tongues touch and slide together, and when he runs his hand down her back, she arches, pressing her breasts into his chest. He's on fire, but he's with _her_ so it's okay, his Hermione, his Jenny, and she is hitching one of her legs up over his hip, and his hands are on her bum, supporting her as she rubs against him. It's heavenly, heavenly, Hermione, Jenny.

But then the door is opening, and they stumble back into the apartment, and her mouth pulls away from his. He's bereft without her, wants her back, but she's struggling to get away.

He's hurt until he hears a horrified voice shout, "Mom!" and the mirror in Jenny's entryway, a flat, frameless horror, shatters into a million pieces.

* * *

><p>They face each other across the kitchen table like combatants, like he's interviewing for a job. Jenny fled to the bathroom to 'neaten up' after a quick peck on her daughter's cheek, and now he's being stared down by a severe-looking ten year old girl child with her blonde hair in braids with ridiculous daisy hair bands adorning the tips.<p>

"I know who you are," she said, sticking the tip of her braid in her mouth.

He removes it. "Do you?"

"Professor Severus Snape." She regards him with not entirely friendly interest. "I never thought the reason I would meet you was because I would walk in on you making out with my mom." Her eyes narrow. Her hands twitch, and he thinks it's because she wants to wag a finger at him.

"I apologize."

"For kissing Mom?" The hair goes back into her mouth.

"No, for meeting you for the first time in such a manner. I liked kissing your mother, and I don't think I'll apologize for that." Again he reaches out and hooks a finger around the braid, pulling it from between her teeth. "I haven't seen her in a very long time, and I'm afraid we lost track of the time. I don't think she realized you'd be home from school."

"You knew her from before me?"

"I did." He sits back and tries to look austere. Snape knows they are treading on dangerous territory.

Again, she sucks on the tip of her braid. When he moves to take it from her, she leans away and says, "Don't. Mom always says it's a bad habit, but I'm thinking very hard right now."

He crosses his fingers in front of him on the table and waits.

"We've got a copy of Hogwarts: A History. Mom's also got a copy of The Dark Lord: Slithering Terror. She keeps it hidden in her bedroom drawer. Like I said, I know who you are."

"Much of what you will have read in Slithering Terror is hyperbolic nonsense, particularly in regards to my role." He shifts uncomfortably. "I promised your mother I wouldn't discuss this with you. I will respect that promise."

She thinks about this and nods. "That's okay, I guess. You're supposed to keep promises."

They lapse into silence and study each other. She's wearing a pink t-shirt with a rearing unicorn on it. The mane is silver foil that winks as she shifts in her seat. "Do you like unicorns?"

"Yes, very much." She pauses and then asks, "Are you my dad?"

Snape sits back, stunned. "What? Whatever gave you that idea?"

"You knew my mom before I was born, and from what I saw, you _like_ like each other. I'm guessing." Her pale, thin face is serious as she watches him across the table. He feels very much like a man at a mark.

"I am not," he finally says stiffly. "You have the look of your father. As you see, I have black hair, and you have blonde. I have black eyes, and you have grey." _I am ugly, and you are beautiful_, he thinks. "I am afraid that I am not your father."

"Maybe you were taking Polyjuice Potion when you made me," she says.

Snape is not sure whether she's pushing because she wants him as her father, or more likely, wants to rule him out. He says, "If you were my child, I would not hesitate to claim you." He wishes things were different, but from the tip of her slender nose to the ends of her corn silk hair, Lucius's stamp on her features is unmistakable. "I promise."

Perdita bites her lip and looks away, blinking rapidly.

Snape looks up, away from the child's obvious grief, and notices Hermione standing in the doorway, watching him. Their eyes meet in communion and sorrow. All the things that might have been hang heavy between them. He looks away first.

Perdita leans forward to touch his hand, drawing his attention back to her. You said that I look like him... my dad. Did you know him? Who is he?"

"Perdy," Jenny says very softly. "I've told you that when you're older, I'll tell you about your father."

The girl starts and swivels around to look at her mother. "Why? _Why_ do I have to wait?" Her slender shoulders creep up to her ears, and she crosses her arms over her chest. "There are lots of other girls in my class who don't have a father that lives with them, but I am the only one who has no idea who my father is." She cries silently. "Some of the other kids say really mean things about us. I thought, since Professor Snape is a hero, maybe if he was my dad, nobody would pick on me any more."

Jenny sighs and moves to sit next to her daughter, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Perdita fights her at first and then gives up, scooting closer and putting her head on her mother's shoulder. "You know," Jenny begins, "we can't control what other people say and think about us. All we can do is control ourselves." She presses a kiss to the part in Perdita's hair.

"B-but, I just d-don't understand why you c-can't tell me. Where _is _he?" Her words are interrupted by deep hiccuping tears that shake her body. "Is he so tuh-terrible?"

Above her daughter's head, Jenny frowns and looks at Snape. Gently, she says, "Now how could anything be terrible that brought me you?" Caught in her gaze, he sees her eyes cloud and darken. Small lines, the first he's noticed, bracket the sides of her mouth.

Hermione is lying. Jenny is telling the truth. He looks away and rubs his eyes. He is unsure what to do or say in this situation. The moment between mother and daughter is private. He is not part of their little family. He has never really been part of a family.

He watches from the outside.

* * *

><p>Later, Jenny prepares dinner and Snape helps Perdy with her homework. Not that she needs it. She does her maths in pen while twining a braid around her finger and chattering away at him.<p>

"And last year, Mom and I saw a horned grebe, which are quite rare in these parts, you know. And she said he had his breeding plumage on, and I giggled because people do that to, put on nice clothes when they want to have a date." She flips a page in her notebook and continues her computations on the back side. "The horned grebe had funny white feathers by his eyes, and it looked like an old man with bushy eyebrows. For dates, Mom puts on a blue dress and some pearls—which you can tell they're real if you rub your teeth on them, because real pearls are gritty. Then I pictured Mom putting on bushy eyebrows too, and I just could _not_ stop laughing."

At the mention of Jenny dating, Snape's gaze jerks to where she putters in the kitchen. Her face burns scarlet, and she shrugs at him as she puts oil in a pan and swishes it around to coat the bottom. When he looks away, back to Perdita, he sees her watching him with a canny glint in her eye.

"At Hogwarts," he says, "there was a phoenix named Fawkes. His breeding plumage was fire."

"_Really_?" Her mouth is a small 'o.' "I've read about phoenixes, but I've never seen one in real life."

"They are rare, and moreover, they are magical creatures. You and your mother are living in a Muggle community. Magical creatures that cannot pass as human tend to stay with the Wizarding community so they do not have to hide." He glances down at her figures, all of which are correct. "Perhaps one day, the three of us can go to Old Hope, near Philadelphia. I've heard there is a thriving Veela community there."

"That would be so cool! When can we go?" A huge smile wreathes Perdita's face, and Snape feels an answering, pleased smile curl on his lips.

"We will see," he says, not wanting to commit Jenny. He has caught her eye, and she has a troubled expression on her face. His stomach tightens.

"Did you hear, Mom?"

"I did! How very exciting!" But her voice is flat, and she does not look up.

He has done something wrong, but he does not know what.

* * *

><p>Snape lies naked in Jenny's bed. It is midnight. He is alone.<p>

Perdita sleeps snug in a room rampant with unicorns and glitter. Jenny is on the couch. He is restless and lonely and surrounded by her smell. Her perfume is on the sheets, and he buries his face in the tee shirt which she had forgotten and left tucked under her pillow. He aches for her.

He thinks he is imagining it at first when the door to the bedroom opens, and she sneaks inside. She closes it, leaning back with her hands against the knob. She is wearing a vest and knitted-cotton shorts. "Am I welcome?" she asks.

He sits upright, the strands of his hair tickling his bare shoulders. "Of course. You are always welcome. I _want_ you near."

Jenny's eyes trace the line of his chest down his torso to where the white down comforter puddles around his hips. "Oh, Severus."

Snape bends his leg, propping his foot on the mattress, and resting his marked forearm on his knee. He is suddenly painfully aware of the erection she caused with her breathy words. He clears his throat. "Would you like to come to bed with me, Jenny?"

"Will you call me Hermione?" She blushes, her cheeks a darker shade of grey in the night. "Just for tonight?"

"Hermione, come here." He holds his hand out to her, and she walks to the bed as if she's pulled to it, shedding clothes all the while. He casts a Silencing Charm on the room.

She sinks next to him, and he wraps his hands in her hair and pulls her to him roughly. He can't be gentle with her because he knows what this is. She thinks she needs to say goodbye, and he's damned if he'll make it easy for her to leave him again. Their teeth click together as he rolls her beneath him, pinning her with his bigger, heavier body. She moans and bites his lip, her fingers clutching at the taut muscles in his back and arse. He touches her, stroking at the apex of her thighs, and she's so wet that he knows she must have been lying on her couch thinking about him, maybe cupping her breasts and imagining they are his hands.

He's on fire and feels vicious. He reaches down and pulls her legs around his hips, and then he's riding her hard, wanting to mark her, spill in her, chain him to her like the primitive animal he is. Her breasts bounce under the force of his thrusts, and she's got her hands braced on the backboard behind her head.

She mewls, cries out with every lunge of his hips, and it's getting more urgent until she's grinding against him and they are both cumming, falling, spilling, tearing.

When it's over, with his face still pressed between her breasts, he smooths a hand over her sweaty tummy and whispers a Contraceptus Charm, because he'd never take her choices away from her. He'd die first. He feels like he _is_ dying, actually.

"Severus," she whispers.

"Hmm," he says, resenting that she won't give him just this moment of peace and accord.

"You know what this is, don't you?"

He rolls away from her, disentangling them with a sticky noise. "Of course. You are going to send me away."

"You can't think I want to."

"But still you are."

"You're high-profile. If we were seeing each other, eventually, someone would wonder where Severus Snape popped off to every weekend. They'd find me. They'd see my daughter was a Malfoy. The British Wizarding world is too scarred from the war. She'd be spat upon, beaten down, twisted. I can't do that to her." She clears her throat, and it's a tight noise. "But don't think this is easy. You can't believe that I don't want you, _love_ you. It's been a decade if it's been a day, but I'd marry you tomorrow if I were free to do so."

She lies down, spooning up behind him, running a hand down his chest.

"I don't think I can do this again," he whispers. "Lose you."

"I'm so sorry. I'm hurting, too."

He sits up, shaking her off. "This is… I am… I have to go."

"All... all right." He can hear the tears in her voice. He can't look at her, because if he sees her crying, he'll crawl right back into bed with her and kiss her face and never leave again. He needs distance. He needs to think clearly, and he can't do it with her naked and smelling of him.

He dresses.

He leaves her crying in her bed.

He walks until dawn.

Snape leaves on his noon Portkey.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN: Don't hate me! That would make me sad.**_

_**Like it, love it, hate it, review it.**_


	4. Epilogue

_**A/N: Here we go.**_

* * *

><p><em>They say that 'time assuages,'-<em>

_Time never did assuage;_

_An actual suffering strengthens,_

_As sinews do, with _

_Time is a test of trouble,_

_But not a remedy._

_If such it prove, it prove to_

_There was no _

_-Emily Dickinson_

**Epilogue**

Jenny kisses Perdita on her crown and sends her out the door to catch the school bus. She waves to her daughter from the door, wearing sweat pants and a white undershirt with pit stains. It is her day off from Sparky's, and lately, when it happens to fall on a school day, and she's left to her own devices, she finds it difficult to motivate.

She looks at the breakfast dishes on the table and worktop, but decides they can wait and flops onto the couch instead. She is blubbering into a cushion over something on her soaps when she hears a knock at the door.

Jenny ignores it, turning the TV volume up.

When the knocking grows more insistent, she sighs and clicks the television off. Shoving her feet into her bedraggled slippies, she trudges to the door, rubbing her knuckles across her cheeks to wipe off her tears.

She is vigorously wiping her runny nose across her forearm when she opens the door and sees him.

He's tall and slender and immaculately dressed in denims and a blue-striped dress shirt. His fall of coarse, black hair is pulled back in a queue. Silver-framed glasses rest on his nose. He looks like a nerd. He's so beautiful.

"S-Severus," she stammers, her heart beating against her breastbone so hard, she worries it will become bruised.

He steps over her door jamb, using his proximity to push her inside. He stares at her, his black eyes tracing over her hair and mouth and chest, and she feels herself dissolving, breaking apart under his scrutiny.

"Severus, what are you doing here?" She shakes a bit, and she curses herself for her transparency.

"I will not respond to that name."

"What do you mean?" She touches her throat, licks her lips.

"David Amant. Say my name." He reaches out and cups the nape of her neck, using it to pull her close. His lips touch hers, just a brief swipe hello.

"Amant?" _Lover_?

"Say, 'Hello, David. I've missed you, and I'm glad you're here to stay now.'" His fingers knead her neck.

Jenny begins to shake so hard, she worries she'll fall to pieces in front of him. He's shattered her. She sees what he's done and knows he did it for her.

"B-but, what about your life back in Scotland?" _Please, please_.

"There is no life without you. Say, 'Hello, David. I've missed you, and I'm glad you're here to stay now.'"

"Hello David. I've missed you, and—," and then his mouth is on hers, and his hands are under her shirt. She's only got a brief moment to regret that she looks so disgusting and hasn't brushed her teeth before her clothes are gone, and he's with her on the floor, rubbing against her, kissing her breasts, between her thighs.

"Say it," he whispers into her hair as he pushes into her.

"I'm so glad," she cries. "I'm so glad you're here to stay."

"Yes, yes," he sighs and kisses her.

* * *

><p>It's much later. They are lying side by side on the hardwood floor, and she's got a splinter in her ass. She doesn't care, though. Severus is beside her.<p>

"Here, look at this," he says and hands her a wand.

"This isn't your ebony wand." She swishes it and is warmed when it responds eagerly to her touch. "Your wand likes me. I mean that on several levels."

He chuckles, a rough, pleased sound. "You'd be right on several levels." He reaches over and takes the chestnut length back. "This is David Amant's wand. Severus Snape's wand is in Wales."

"Oh?"

"Yes, it's in a cottage tucked up in a remote fold of the Cambrian Mountains. Snape retired as Headmaster of Hogwarts to do research there, you know."

"Mmm, clever," she purrs and rolls to press her chest against his side.

He raises his eyebrows and smirks. "Of course." He turns and slides his bicep under her neck, using his free hand to trace the curves of her breasts. "It took me so long to come back to you because I had to set up a Floo connection between the cottage and the house I bought here in Whitville. I didn't want the Ministry to have any part of it, so I had to figure it out myself. Intercontinental Flooing uses complex magics." He pushes her over and sucks her right nipple into his mouth.

She's too replete to feel anything but lazy pleasure, but she enjoys having him close, so she wraps her fingers in his hair and watches him. "Why do you need a Floo connection?"

He releases her nipple with a pop. It's shiny and red, and he leans down to kiss it. "Even though the entire Wizarding world knows I disdain foolish wand-waving, it'd be straining credulity if I never cast any spells at all. I can pop back and forth easily to maintain the fiction that I'm in seclusion." Severus nuzzles her neck. "Plus, it's so remote, I thought it would be nice for the three of us to spend an occasional weekend there. It's beautiful."

She pulls back and turns her face to meet his sloe-eyed gaze. "This is real, right? After ten years, this is actually happening?"

He gives her a slow smile and says, "Oh yes. It's happening, and I have very long term plans where you and Perdita are involved."

Jenny feels her cheeks heat. "She asked after you for ages, you know. I think you made an impression on her."

He smiles and picks up his wand. "She made an impression on me as well." Severus casts his Patronus. A bright white duck with bushy eyebrows flies out of the tip of his wand.

Jenny laughs. "A horned grebe?"

"Yes, I always seem to end up with terribly emasculating Patronuses." He sighs and then lets his arm flop back to the ground. "I'm serious. I want both of you. Do you think that's possible?"

"I do. Just go slowly with her." She smiles and runs her fingers through the spill of his hair. "Hey."

"Hmmm," he grumbles lazily, closing his eyes in pleasure.

"I love you. I've missed you, and I'm very glad you're here to stay."

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN: Well, so there it is. I hope you enjoyed it, Curia and fandom! And just so you know, Whitville is NOT a real town, but is based on a real town that really did just recently get its very first library.**_

_**Like it, love it, hate it, review it.  
><strong>_


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